Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do to automatically generate traffic is publish new content regularly!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase. We helped you understand the best way to start if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your existing site was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration stage of the traffic system. We explain how a WordPress site should be configured in order to get traffic automatically simply by regularly publishing web content on your site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration Phase
Finding ways to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by business owners as their greatest challenge online. With business becoming increasingly more competitive worldwide, it’s worth learning about any opportunity you can to get better results online.
Having the ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage over the competition. For business owners, having an expertly configured website means having a significant competitive advantage from the word “go”.
The Configuration Phase Is What Makes All The Difference
There is a significant difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a website that has been professionally set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s a simple way to describe the differences:
With a WordPress website that has been expertly configured you get a web presence plus an automated online business marketing tool!
(An expertly configured website gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only does it take more labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let me illustrate this point with a story.
A Semi-True Story …
Everything is going well in the gizmo manufacturing plant when things suddenly grinds to a stop.
As no one can figure out what’s gone wrong, the plant manager decides to call in an expert to fix the problem.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and, without uttering a word, walks directly to the main control box. After staring at the wiring board for 3 minutes, the expert then takes out a teeny-weeny hammer and makes a very gentle tap about one inch from the left-hand edge of the unit.
Immediately, the whole machine starts working once more.
The manager is delighted as he thanks the expert, who then leaves just as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the factory manager receives a request of payment for services rendered for $5,000.
Bewildered and angry, the factory manager dials the expert. Why were they charged such a ludicrous fee for less than 5 minutes work? He then requests an itemized invoice to be sent and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The main challenge most businesses face online is driving traffic to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo plant stand to lose when the machines stopped working and no one in the factory floor had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert not have the right to get paid fairly for investing years developing the knowledge, skills and expertise that allowed him to assess and fix a potentially costly problem?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress blog fully configured so all you ever had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social media and dozens of other traffic-generating online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
While the solution to many challenges is often ridiculously easy once it’s been implemented, it rarely turns out to be that way.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than adding some pages with content and configuring basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to get various functionalities on your site.
- Which services you need to set up and activate to achieve desired results
- Which internal and external settings you need to configure in order to ensure that processes will work as expected, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This stage of the WordPress traffic automation system is not technically challenging, but it’s quite involved. The reason why is because it’s not as simple as installing a plugin, clicking on a button or two, or tweaking some settings in your admin area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites or online services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring some settings in WordPress)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing all the steps involved in the configuration phase)
Let’s take a look at what’s involved in more detail.
Your Server
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for website installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about tweaking settings in your web server that affect how your site will handle web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your web server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the traffic your website may attract will be unwelcome traffic like spam, security threats, brute-force bot attacks, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for bad and good traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This could include things like spam protection and threat prevention, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After your web server settings have been checked and configured, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites.
Integration With External Web Properties
The concept behind adding external sites is that all content should be published to one central location (your site) and from there, get distributed automatically to other components of your web traffic generation system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you incorporate these external sites into your traffic system, content linked back to your website is automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your content and website benefits from increased exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your site’s settings to help speed up the configuration process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up before configuring your site:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmasters lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with essential information, SEO tools and reports about your website.
Once your account and site data with Google are set up, this information can be used to automate web traffic settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your site’s performance, SEO, user engagement, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behavior, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrers, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site data have been set up, traffic tracking data can be integrated with WordPress via any of several Google Analytics plugins and instantly fed to other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account with Bing Webmaster Tools, this information can be used with traffic-related settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part Two, WordPress offers both a self-hosted (WordPress.org) and a hosted (WordPress.com) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress platform if you plan to grow a professional business presence online.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which can be accessed by a number of WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account at WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate this into your web traffic system in Part 4 of this article series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site)
You will need your social accounts set up before you can configure these as part of your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site.
You should have pages set up with all the main social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can set up and post your content to. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just pick those that will work with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(There are lots of social bookmarking sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and content aggregators that can act as second-tier sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator that allows you to add an RSS feed from your WordPress site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is a news aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your page.
There are various platforms that can be added to your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a strategy to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure WordPress.
WordPress – Configuring Your Website Or Blog For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
WordPress – Global Settings
The WordPress dashboard area contains a Settings section that allows you to configure your site’s global settings …
(WordPress dashboard menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect your site’s SEO, search results, etc …
(Global Settings – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings Screen)
As described below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally chosen to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is available …
(Writing Settings – WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(You can notify dozens of update services automatically!)
Download A Comprehensive List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site!
Click the link below to download a comprehensive list of reliable and authoritative ping services for your WordPress site or blog:
Download A List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site
***
Note: If you need help setting up the list of ping services on your site, we recommend using a professional web services provider. You can find professional WordPress service providers in our WordPress Services Directory.
Reading
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence web traffic. For example, your choice to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content displays in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could play a part in someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to read the rest of the content from summaries, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
The main setting in this section as far as your traffic system is concerned is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is ticked or not.
Generally, you want search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically ping various update services whenever a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, leave this box unchecked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although discussion settings are mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs linked to from your posts, and to allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks). This can work for you, but it can also drive bad traffic in the form of SPAM comments …
(WordPress Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the ways site’s permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring SEO-friendly URLs)
If you need help setting up WP permalinks, refer to this step-by-step tutorial: How To Improve Your WordPress SEO With SEO-Friendly URLs
WordPress Traffic Plugins – Configuration
The WordPress developer community makes available plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Here are examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help to bring more visitors to your site
Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. No site is completely safe from a cyberattack.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to hackers and botnets.
Go here for more details:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by improving improving the way search engines like Google find, classify and index your web pages …
(WP SEO Plugin – Yoast SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO (previously called WordPress SEO by Yoast) can significantly improve your SEO. Properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your website easier for search engines like Google and Bing to index, it also lets you specify how to present your content in Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and GooglePlus.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your site easily with free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress users.
Many social share plugins allow you to specify which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Traffic Theme Settings – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help improve your site’s traffic generation capabilities.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring layout and design elements of your website, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add tracking snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WP themes like Graphene (a highly customizable free theme) include built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of themes, adding social sharing buttons to your website is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
Configuring Additional Features Of WordPress
Last (but by no means least) in the WordPress traffic system configuration process, are the components that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in traffic, it’s important to plan not only how to handle bad and good traffic but also for all the situations that can hurt your business as more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you make money online (or plan to), you need to ensure that your site remains compliant with all laws and regulations.
(Is Your Website Legally Compliant?)
For a detailed article about how to quickly add all necessary legal pages to your website or blog, go here:
Tags & Post Categories
WordPress post categories & tags help search engines classify and index your website, which helps you get more traffic.
(Post categories help to improve your site’s SEO, which helps to increase traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be discussed and set up during the Website Planning Phases.
When configuring your website to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s categories and tags have been set up correctly to deliver optimal results.
Add A Site Map
A site map that displays all of your site’s pages and posts to visitors is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external applications find more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same thing. Only search engine bots can understand XML sitemaps. Although Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
Your Site’s 404 Page
When visitors searching for your site enter the wrong web address into their browser or click on an invalid hyperlink, they are presented with a 404 error page …
(Default WordPress 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up on your web server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your website or blog has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then is post fresh content on a regular basis to automatically drive traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of different elements and external web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web developers months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is addressed in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read the rest of this article, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online cost-effectively using a WordPress-powered website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
Get Notified When New Tutorials Are Published – Subscribe Using The Form Below!
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
***